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Friday, September 25, 2009

Last Monday we kicked off our education programs in Roseland. We've got GREAT things going on!

The After-School Academy (ASA) is in it's second year at Roseland. Danielle Evans is heading up the effort and doing a wonderful job.

Anna Hart, Phillip Hawkins, and Tameshia Ridge are our amazing Americorps members who are helping her manage our 30 kids and numerous classes. The ASA has partnered with Susie Marshall with the Gleaning Network of Texas. She is helping our kids create a fantastic community garden that we are hoping will become a mini-farmer’s market (run by the kids) to the Roseland community. We are also partnering with Shawn Williams of Dallas South News who will be helping our kids become junior reporters, with the hopes/plans of them reporting out on the Dallas South News site in a month or so.

At the building across the water park area (2101 N. Washington) on the first floor is the Roseland Library/Bookstore. Katrina Hobbs, another Americorps member, is doing great things there. Katrina is at UTA majoring in Education. She grew up in Roseland and has been a part of Central Dallas' programs for 14 years. She’s so excited about beginning to work with kids on their reading. We also sell books there for 25 cents for paperbacks and 50 cents for hardbacks for adults and children.

We also have a Teen University in that same building. Terrence Brooks, another Americorps member is going to school at Dallas Theological Seminary. He plans to run his own non-profit one of these days, but I'm hoping we'll be able to sell him on sticking around here. He’s amazing with the teens. He’s working on helping them with their reading and school work. In addition, we just received a grant in partnership with UTD. UTD will provide us with 2-4 college students to work with the teens on homework, college preparation, career research, and taking college trips.

Finally, we received a grant from One Economy in conjunction with CTIA and Comcast. It’s a Digital Connectors program. Tameshia, who also works in the ASA, will be running the program. Tameshia is awesome at technology and is extremely excited about teaching the teens. The program is for 14-21 year olds and focuses on several skills. Technology is the big focus, but they also has a leadership, financial literacy, and service component. Through the program, the teens will become certified by Cisco Systems to be able to rebuild computers. They will also be creating a mobile app and be creating videos throughout the program. I am so excited we were chosen to be a part of that and can’t wait to see what happens once the group mobilizes and becomes technology point people for the Roseland community.

Whew! So…please! Come visit us!! Great things are happening and I would love to show you what they look like!